


But they don't know you like I do.

by parttimehuman



Series: Compared to the Moon [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Forgiveness, Happy Ending, M/M, Making Up, a little bit sadness, many kisses, soft times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 20:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18351353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimehuman/pseuds/parttimehuman
Summary: Sometimes there's more to a story than the marks fists leave. Nolan can't let the relationship with Brett break apart.





	But they don't know you like I do.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might remember this little fic I wrote and called Compared to the Moon. In chapter 19, while Liam waits for Theo to come back to him, Nolan shows up, apologizing on Brett's behalf for the fight that landed Liam in the hospital. When Nolan says their relationship might be over, Liam reacts with a very clear no. I have always wanted to write about what happens after he sends Nolan away to go and find Brett.

It has gone dark by the time Nolan leaves the park, cold wind creeping beneath his shirt, jacket forgotten, not that he would have made Liam give it back to him, the dampness of the grass freezing his feet. He's hugging his own body as he walks, shaking like a leaf. There's a place to go, though, or maybe not so much a place, but a feeling. A feeling he's only known for a short while and already misses. A feeling he knows he needs to get back, however the hell they're going to make it work.

 

There's soft, yellow light inside the house that Nolan stops in front of, making him smile. He's only been in the room behind the window pane once, but he's got a nice, warm feeling thinking about the lives happening inside it at the moment. He rings the doorbell and waits, teeth clattering.

 

"Nolan," Lori says as she opens the front door, standing there in a soft looking hoodie and with her hair tied up on top of her head, looking strangely unlike the way she does at school. It's nice to see her, although she clearly seems surprised. "Brett said you weren't going to come tonight." She takes him in, looking from his face to the goosebumps covering his bare arms, nodding slowly, "I see. Come in. Do you want a cup of tea? You look like you could use one. Brett's upstairs, by the way."

 

"Oh," Noan says. He doesn't care about what excuse Brett made for him in front of his family, doesn't care about tea. He cares only about one thing. "I thought it was board game night?" He asks, sounding a little dumb even to his own ears.

 

"Well, it is," Lori confirms. Nolan could think about the faint shadows appearing on her forehead and the sides of her neck, but he doesn't. They're not really a color, they're just shadows, just slightly darker than her skin, moving like smoke, just the way the do beneath her brother's skin when something's going on with him. Nolan politely declines the tea, leaves his dirty shoes outside of the house and climbs the staircase. Lori  _ knows _ , so there's no need to pretend like he came for anything else, no need to invite him to join their game or offer him tea. He has other things on his mind.

 

The moment Nolan reaches the first floor, he realizes that he's never witnessed the house being so silent. The noises coming from the downstairs living room are muffled, but still more present than anything coming from upstairs. He stands in front of the door to Brett's bedroom, and there should me music blaring from inside, loud and kind of too heavy, to scream-y for his taste, but there's nothing, and  _ nothing _ always hurts.

 

Nolan knocks on the door. It feels strange. For weeks he was following Brett around like a puppy, and then for another couple of weeks, when things started to change into  _ something _ between them, Brett was after him like a wolf stalking its prey, and then, finally, they were together, inseparable, constantly up in each other's space because they could never get close enough and every part of each other had them craving for more. What about now, though? What right does Nolan have to be standing in Brett's home now? And ask for what exactly?

 

There's no answer. Nolan's hand brushes the wooden door. He wants to go inside, but he doesn't want to have to push, doesn't want to be intruding. There's a little dark green spot on the back of his hand that travels to the tip of his finger on the door, keeping his eyes there, not allowing him to turn away. Nolan knows the truth, which is that the same color was never there under his skin before meeting Brett, and it hasn't left just because they're not on good terms at the moment.

 

Brett wants him to leave, Nolan is sure, but he can't stop thinking about Liam. He can't stop thinking about Liam and the blankness of his skin, the bruises that are somehow even worse. The tears and the breaking of his voice that Nolan was never supposed to witness. Liam's unprompted and strict  _ No _ . when Nolan mentioned the possibility that he and Brett were done. Nolan stands and thinks and bites his lips and stares at the dark green that could mean anything but screams only a name to him. Brett; and in the end, that's all that matters.

 

For a few seconds, Nolan feels like he's doing the right thing, and the universe owes him a reward for it, so of course, things will be alright. He's ready to listen, to understand, to compromise. To forgive. To do better in the future.

 

He's not ready to see Brett the way he finds him, so extremely unlike himself that it feels like a knife is twisted in Nolan's heart, Brett's long body folded together on top of his bed, motionless and seemingly fragile. There's not much skin to see with Brett's hands swallowed by the sleeves of his sweater and the hood pulled over his head, his eyes of such a light blue that they look like ice, fixating an empty spot on an empty wall.

 

Brett doesn't say anything, doesn't give any sign at all that he's noticing Nolan's presence. He looks like he's far away, even when Nolan slowly moves around the bed and sits down next to him so incredibly cautiously that it seems ridiculous, given the fact that Brett is not actually made of glass.

 

"Show me your face," Nolan whispers, because he's certain he can still love what he'll see, and if only Brett lets him, he'll make him understand.

 

Brett turns around and faces the other wall.

 

"You know what?" Nolan says. "Doesn't matter. It doesn't change a thing." He lies down where the mattress is still warm from Brett's body, only an inch away from touching him. Every fiber of his being screams warnings at him, warnings not to let his guard down, not to go soft, not to make himself weak and vulnerable, but Nolan cranes his neck and looks at Brett's back, and he knows every inch of skin, every mark - permanent or not - every hair and every mole, every muscle of that body he's looking at, knows its reactions and he can tell that whatever it's doing at the moment, it's bad.

 

Brett isn't tall and strong anymore, not smiling, not talking. It's wrong. It's all wrong and Nolan won't - he can't leave him like this.

 

"I know what you look like," Nolan says, willing his voice to stay calm and steady although his heart is racing. He's never had anything as precious as his relationship with Brett, and he's never been as afraid of it breaking apart.

 

There's something - not really a movement, maybe just a tiny increase in tension between Brett's shoulder blades - something almost not noticeable. Nolan swallows down all his fears and continues talking. "You look like you took a beating," he says. "Not from Liam's fists. I mean, there are probably a few actual bruises there too, I guess, but that's not what I mean. You look like you took a beating because that's what guilt does to you. It's this sickly yellow, almost green-tinged, and there are patches of it all over your body right now. Then there's this weird mix of blackish purple and faint red, and I bet it's blooming somewhere on your chest."

 

Brett takes a breath out, an actual breath, not one of those he tries to hide from Nolan. He still refuses to move or reply in any way, though.

 

"You've got this red cross in your back, I bet. It's always there when you're angry, maybe even when you're angry at yourself. It's like a sign of a burden you're carrying." Nolan reaches out and touches Brett's neck through the sweater. Almost without pressure, he traces Brett's spine from there down to the small of his back, where he knows the mark is fading, then draws a line from one shoulder to the other.

 

"Somewhere, there's this green," Nolan says, "this color like grass, but I don't know where. It's pushed back, made small. You've still got it, but it's like it has to wait until all the other colors are gone. I don't like that, Brett. I want to see the green. I want to go and look for it."

 

When Brett finally speaks, his voice comes like a punch to the gut, raw and rough, the words spit out like poison, "Everybody warned you, Nolan. Why couldn't you have run like everyone else always does?"

 

Nolan shakes his head, desperate for a way to explain to Brett that there's no answer to his question.

 

"On your neck, there's this orange sprinkle that you almost can't see," he says instead. "It's not gone, is it?"

 

"You had to wait until this happens," Brett snarls. "You had to play with fire, and now you got burned."

 

"Neither of us was ever playing, and you know it."

 

"That's not the point."

 

"That's exactly the point."

 

Brett flinches when Nolan's hand returns to his back. He strokes Brett's arm and lets his fingers drop to the hem of his sweater, feeling soft, smooth skin underneath. Warmth, not fire. Life, not a game.

 

"Show me your colors, Brett," Nolan whispers, "I can make them mine."

 

Brett remains still, not fighting Nolan's hand as it pushes up his sweater, brushing over his skin and sending a shiver down his spine that Nolan can trace with his eyes as it ripples through him. He's fine with Brett hiding his face in the sweater for now - they’ll go one step at a time.

 

Although Nolan did call it, the sight of Brett's body still isn't an easy one to take in. He looks like he took a beating indeed, not an inch of his skin free of the marks Nolan described. It's brutal, forcing tears to well up in Nolan's eyes, but he refuses to shed them.

 

Instead, his fingers touch Brett, making the colors flutter beneath them. While Brett winces as if he was truly injured and the contact hurting him, Nolan didn't let it distract him. He spread his fingers over Brett's back and his side, smudging the sharp red line along his spine where he crosses it. And then he leans down, touching the most aggressive looking one of the ugly, purple marks with his lips, pressing them on it again and again until the color starts to fade.

 

"You're right," Nolan murmurs, "everybody did warn me. But they don't know you like I do." Another kiss follows, just an inch to the left. "They can't see what I see." Brett's breath hitches when the next kiss is pressed to his back. "They have no idea," Nolan whispers into his skin, because it's true, because nobody knows what happens to Brett after he clashes with Liam once again. Nobody knows the things he carries around under his skin, hidden away beneath clothes because nobody has ever told Brett that not all marks have to be sparks and butterflies and flower petals, but Nolan will. For the rest of their lives, if Brett lets him.

 

One by one, the bruises that aren't real bruises disappear beneath Nolan's lips and the tips of his fingers, slowly fading away until nothing is left but even breathing and two hearts beating in synchrony. Almost nothing.

 

Brett turns around and lies on his back, hand clutched over his heart. "I'll stay away from him," he says, eyes straight up at the ceiling. "I'll apologize for being a dick to Liam, and then I'll stay away from him."

 

Nolan nods and puts a hand on top of Brett's, slowly pushing his fingers in between Brett's and pulling them away, revealing the last remaining patch of red and purple swirled together, like an old wound reopened. He kisses that, too, but Brett lets out a shaky breath and cups his face with one hand, saying, "I'm sorry."

 

Nolan needs to stop himself from telling Brett too soon how it's okay, how seeing Brett's guilt and remorse changing him so much makes all the difference in the world and he forgives him. It's not okay yet, even if he trusts it will be.

 

"Liam just presses all of my buttons at once every time without even trying," Brett explains. "It shouldn't still- I should be over it by now. We're not kids anymore. We're supposed to deal with it differently than with our fists."

 

"What happened when you were kids?" Nolan asks, because he knows nobody can make Brett lose control like Liam apparently does, and he knows there has to be a reason.

 

"Doesn't matter," Brett shrugs. "Wasn't his fault. It was long before he was diagnosed with IED, long before he was on medication. He had an episode. I can't still hold that against him."

 

The mark on Brett's chest grows a little smaller, the edges softening, the colors blending together into a prettier kind of violet.

 

"What did he do?" Nolan wants to know, not necessarily because he needs the information, but because he has a feeling Brett needs to talk about it so he can finally let it go for good.

 

A bright red creeps up in Brett's neck, and Nolan almost has to laugh because of how much it resembles Liam's mark, because of how similar the two of them actually are when you think about it.

 

He gives Brett credit for hesitating, but he still raises his eyebrows to look more demanding, waiting for an answer. They both know he'll win, same as he always does, because while Brett can be an asshole, he can't be an asshole to Nolan, or deny him anything, ever.

 

"He smashed our car," Brett finally spills. "Not because it was ours, it was simply the closest in the parking lot at one of our little league lacrosse games. I don't even remember what upset him that much, but he took his lacrosse stick and hammered it against the car, over and over again. He was little, but boy, did he do some damage."

 

Nolan is surprised, a little bit. "So Liam ruined your grandparent's car in an outburst of anger," he sums up, but he can tell from the way Brett swallows that that's not quite it.

 

"Not my grandparent's car," Brett presses out. "My parent's car. They'd died earlier that year, and my grandpa took their car to drive us everywhere. I wasn't even that mad when Liam smashed it. I only really lost it when they said there was no use in getting it fixed anymore. It was so old already, and although Liam's parents paid for the damage, they used the money to buy a new one."

 

Nolan doesn't know what to do except wrap his arms around Brett's body and hold him tightly against his chest. He knew about Brett's parents dying when he was still a kid, and about his grandparents raising him and Lori from then on. He knows that Brett misses them incredibly much, and from the way the other boy treasures each and every single one of the memories he has of them, he can imagine what Brett's story about the car means.

 

"I'm sorry," he says, although it's not good enough, and it won't change anything, and it's not his place to apologize, and it won't be any consolation to Brett, but he's truly, deeply sorry, his heart breaking a little.

 

"He didn't know," Brett mutters. "He didn't know what he'd done. It had nothing to do with him, but they'd only just moved us out of our parent's house and I'd already lost so much of their world and the car was too much, and I didn't know what to say or to do to make it stop, so I took the easiest way and got into fights with Liam, who was absolutely no challenge to provoke. I guess we both were each other's outlet for a while until our teachers got behind what was the reason for all the bloody noses and knocked out teeth."

 

Brett's voice sounds cold and strangely distant as he speaks. Nolan's hand over his heart can almost wipe away the remaining color of guilt.

 

"We got called into the principal's office," Brett continues. "Liam was suspended for a week. His parents picked him up and took him home. They were pretty mad at him."

 

Nolan can see where the story is going. He feels this urgent need to go back in time and make little Brett's life easier, less lonely, less helpless.

 

"There were absolutely no consequences for  _ me _ ," Brett says, staring straight ahead, eyes empty. "No yelling. No suspension. Not even a warning. And no parents picking me up."

 

Nolan swallows. There's nothing he can say to that, so he nuzzles his face against Brett and lies still, fingers caressing the skin he can reach while Brett's arms finally, finally close around him as well, the sweater forgotten at Brett's other side, his walls fallen, his guard down, his heart bleeding, open. Nolan decides to kiss it better every day from that moment on, to fill the spaces left empty with life.

 

They lay entangled in each other, mixed together like the same color of slightly different shades, creating an entirely new one that they'll be painting all their future days in. Tears have dried on Brett's cheeks and the red has faded from his neck. The orange sprinkle is there, right there where Nolan can see it, touch it, make it squirm. He raises his head and tips Brett's chin towards him until he can kiss his lips softly, taking them between his own.

 

Brett's hands move up from behind Nolan's back to his neck and his hair, his lips part and his tongue darts out to demand access to Nolan's mouth, which is happily granted. They promise each other that they're good, that they'll be better, that the good things they have are worth the bad days that nobody can avoid.

 

"Still haven't found that green on you," Nolan murmurs against Brett's lips, earning a smile, not a big one, but a real, genuine one that makes his heart go soft. The same color he's looking for is on every tip of a finger of his, and he plans to touch every inch of Brett until he's found it.

 

"No one's gonna find it if not you," Brett says, his eyelids fluttering shut as he leans in for another kiss, and that's the truth, even while the world outside is still cruel and imperfect, and Liam still a friend to Nolan that's hurting, and not all issues solved. They have later for those.

 

Board game night can happen without them this once, and the world outside go on while they're busy drawing colors beneath each other's skin. Nolan finds a patch of green and then makes a few dozen more appear where his fingers graze Brett's skin. He adds marks that are actual bruises, sucked into it with his lips, the sting soothed by his tongue. They're calm and thorough, not chasing anything, simply losing themselves in each other.

 

Colors and patterns come and go, pushed and pulled by greedy fingers and sucking mouths, but there's a bit of green that remains on both of them. It stands for love, and it stands for forgiveness. It stands for partnership, in good times and bad, and through them until a better day rises. Through fuck-ups and apologies, and all of the consequences thereof.

 

"I'm sorry," Brett whispers into the night after they've long gone silent.

 

"I'm sorry too," Nolan replies, reaching for his hand and intertwining their fingers.

 

Maybe Brett wants to protest, maybe he has more to say, but they're both tired - of being awake and of the emotional pain they had to work through - so they let sleep pull them under. Tomorrow will be a fresh start.

  
  



End file.
